Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Run, Yuli, run!




Photo (C) Alexandr Kogtev (Александр Когтев)

As crackdown on the opposition rallies by the incumbent Kremlin administration intensified in the wake of fast approaching State Duma elections this photograph of a man running from OMON (OMON is the Russian riot police, see the entry in Wikipedia) appeared in the Russian blogs. According to the bloggers the old man in question is:

..."a lonely dissident wolf" Yuli Rybakov (Юлий Рыбаков) running from OMON on the St Petersburg's Mayakovski street. "Right, with a white clove I ran away from them. They are bad runners in their diving-suits. Only one of them grabbed me but I was able to force myself free and took a turn behind a corner. Later I returned. They were dragging Natalia Evdokimova into detention buss (in Russian "автозак", sort of buss modified for prisoners' transportation). So I sat there down too."

Needless to say mocking pictures immediately appeared in the users net, such as this one:

I am afraid this is not just a random lucky photo by the photographer, but it captures the real feeling, which is dominant in the election campaing today: enforcers armed with the full might of state apparatus chasing the defenceless, in fact harmless opposition, outnumbered dozen-to-one.

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